Jack Doohan is facing a very uncertain future at Alpine with Franco Colapinto widely expected to replace the rookie, who harmed his chances with a huge crash in Japan.
The 22-year-old has raced with his back firmly upped against the wall in Enstone ever since Alpine awarded Doohan an early Formula 1 debut at the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. He was set to debut this season after Alpine promoted their reserve driver to replace Esteban Ocon.
Doohan has been a part of the Alpine family since February 2022 when the Australian joined their driver academy. But questions have continually swirled about how long he will last this term after Alpine bought Colapinto from Williams as a reserve driver for the 2025 F1 season.
F1 Oversteer exclusively reported ahead of last week’s race at Suzuka that Doohan expected the Japanese Grand Prix to be his last race with Alpine, too. It would not be a great event for the Gold Coast native, either, as Doohan qualified in 19th place before coming home in P15.
Jack Doohan’s Japanese Grand Prix FP2 crash cost Alpine a repair bill exceeding £1.3m
Alpine made Doohan’s challenge at the Japanese GP even harder by benching the Australian in favour of Ryo Hirakawa for FP1. Doohan had not raced at Suzuka since he did the 2019 F3 Asian series, but Alpine intended to carry out test runs and felt Pierre Gasly was a better fit.
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So, the Australian’s first time lapping Suzuka driving an F1 car was in FP2 yet his session only lasted minutes. Doohan crashed at 185mph entering Suzuka’s Turn 1 on his second push lap as his Alpine A525 snapped violently to the left after he did not manually disengage his DRS.
Now, Marca reports that Doohan has left himself in a ‘very difficult position’ with Alpine, as his Japanese GP FP2 crash cost the Renault-owned squad more than €1.5m (£1.3m). It puts the Australian under even more pressure with Colapinto plus Paul Aron itching for his drive.
Alpine are not expected to replace Doohan for the Bahrain GP this weekend unless he is not fit to race. But his Japanese GP FP2 crash adds to the pressure facing the Australian after executive adviser Flavio Briatore declared: “Without going fast, you’re not going anywhere”.
Franco Colapinto cost Williams millions with crashes and has already damaged an Alpine
Doohan likely needs a big bounce-back performance at the Bahrain GP after qualifying 19th at the Japanese GP and was 0.691s off Gasly’s Q1 lap. Alpine also held a previously planned test at Monza for Aron and Colapinto last weekend whilst Doohan toiled at the Japanese GP.
The test was part of Alpine’s Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) programme and gifted Colapinto plus Aron a chance to familiarise themselves with their car and procedures in the case they replace Doohan. Alpine paid Williams £8.5m for Colapinto to join their reserve pool in 2025.
READ MORE: Who is Alpine reserve driver Franco Colapinto? Everything to know
Yet the run was not perfect for Colapinto, despite lapping the home of the Italian Grand Prix half a second faster than Aron during his qualifying simulation and 0.7s in race pace. The 21-year-old ran off into Ascari and forced Alpine to spend an hour repairing the floor of the car.
Colapinto even cost Williams millions in damages after replacing Logan Sargeant for the last nine rounds of the 2024 season from the Italian GP. Alex Albon and Colapinto dealt Williams a seven-figure repair bill in Brazil after an error-strewn event by the Thai and Argentine aces.
Williams rebuilt the Buenos Aires native’s car after his shunt in qualifying, only for Colapinto to crash under a safety car entering the main straight on Lap 32 of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. To make matters worse, Colapinto crashed in qualifying at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, as well.
The amount of damage that Colapinto racked up in only nine rounds saw him cost Williams £2.2m in repairs. He registered the sixth-highest repair bill of any F1 driver in 2024 – Sergio Perez cost Red Bull the most at £3.8m, with Albon ranking second with a £3.6m repair bill.
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